The righty continues to evolve.
On Sunday, Brayan Bello turned in his best performance of the season. He threw seven innings of shutout baseball against the Yankees, one of the top offenses in the league. In his prior start, he held the Rays to three runs over 6 1⁄3 innings.
In his start against the Rays, he used a sweeper-heavy approach. He’s featured his sweeper frequently this season, but facing he Tampa used the breaking ball as his primary pitch against lefties. I wasn’t buying that new approach as a source of long-term success. Big, horizontal breaking balls don’t typically play well against the opposite-handed hitters. He spotted his breaker well in that outing, but hasn’t shown consistent enough command for me to believe that was the best way forward.
Heading into the start against the Yankees, I wasn’t confident in Bello if he took that same approach. He didn’t, though, and instead went for something brand new once again. On Sunday afternoon, Bello threw 38 cutters. Before that, he had never thrown more than ten in a game. It worked wonders for him. Nearly 70% of his cutters went for strikes. Nobody managed to hit the ball in the air. He also used the pitch for multiple purposes, with intention. He threw backdoor to lefties early in counts for called strikes, and to the glove side later in counts to try to induce whiffs. Against righties, he left the pitch over the plate a little too often, but it didn’t come back to bite him. When he located, he earned whiffs, including two against Aaron Judge in the first inning. Should he continue throwing a four-seam, he can also use the cutter at the top of the zone for called strikes. Hitters see a pitch up and expect a four-seamer, only for the cutter to fall and clip the top of the zone.
Most of his other pitches showed up as well. He continued to locate his sinker inside to righties. Against lefties, his changeup showed up for the first time in several appearances. He located it on the arm side consistently and got five whiffs on 20 pitches. The velocity is still higher than ideal, but the command was encouraging.
If I had one critique of the outing, it was that his four-seam found the middle of the zone too often. He didn’t allow any hits against it, and the shape of the pitch allows it to survive even when it’s a bit lower, but just two whiffs on 21 pitches isn’t the rate we’re looking for. Fortunately, the cutter was there to provide strikes against lefties, so he didn’t need to lean on the four-seam.
Let’s see what it looks like in practice.
We’ll start with Aaron Judge in the third inning. Judge punched out in his first at-bat on a cutter down and away.
Bello tries to throw a backdoor sinker to Judge to start the meeting. He misses down to go 1-0.
Great pitch. This time, the sinker is inside, presumably to try to induce a ground ball. It’s on the lower inside corner where Judge isn’t looking up 1-0 in the count.
Solid. Bello goes to the cutter that starts middle and runs to the outer edge. Judge fouls it off for the second strike. With two strikes, Bello could double up on the cutter, elevate a fastball, or even go back to the sinker inside. It also could be a good time to throw a sweeper, but asking Bello to command a fourth pitch when he has issues with three may be a big ask.
The righty goes to his four-seam fastball and blows it by Judge. He’s probably looking for something soft in a two-strike count, and he can’t catch up to this one.
Let’s jump ahead to Cody Bellinger in the sixth inning to see a lefty. Bellinger walked and singled on a deflected ground ball coming into this at-bat.
This may not seem like much, but it’s a really great pitch. Very few left-handed hitters are looking for a cutter on the outer half in the first pitch of an at-bat. It starts off the plate and comes back to hit the outside edge for called strike one. If Bello can throw this pitch consistently, his walk rate will fall, and he’ll get deeper into games.
Bello doubles up on the cutter and tries to go inside this time. It’s too low, but it’s not a bad miss. 1-1.
This one is a mistake, but he gets away with it. Bello tries to throw a sinker at the front hip, but it runs too far over the plate. Fortunately, Bellinger can only foul it off for strike two. Similar to the Judge at-bat, Bello could elevate a fastball with two strikes. He could also go to his changeup away, or try the cutter towards the back foot. I’d stay away from the sinker after a miss like that.
Bello goes to the four-seamer but misses badly. 97 mph in the sixth inning is excellent, but this location will never get a whiff. At 2-2, it’s virtually the same situation following a non-competitive pitch.
Woof. Fastball right down the middle, and Bellinger just can’t catch up. Again, this might be a mistake, but Bello’s ability to throw three pitches on the day makes it hard for a hitter to zero in on one. Bellinger may have been thinking changeup after Bello went to one in a two-strike count in their previous at-bat.
Here’s one more two-pitch sequence that I think is cool and potentially impactful going forward. It’s against Jazz Chisholm, the batter immediately after Bellinger in the sixth. We’ll jump to a 2-1 count.
It’s a cutter that’s supposed to be on the outside edge, but comes over the middle of the plate. Chisholm fouls it off; it looks like he may be expecting a straight fastball. It’s not the best pitch Bello threw on Sunday, but it does set up the next one.
It’s a sinker that starts at Chisholm’s front hip and clips the inside edge to end the inning. Look at Chisholm’s reaction. He jumps back; he likely thinks it’s another cutter. Bello has thrown the front-hip sinker previously, but he’s never had a pitch like a cutter to set it up. The four-seam fastball could work in theory, but he never throws it inside to lefties to set the sinker up. His sweeper has too much movement and is too slow to set up the front hip sinker. In the cutter, he has a hard pitch with a shorter movement profile that he can pair with the sinker to leave a hitter motionless.
My major question following this outing is, “Can he do it again?” Sometimes, a new approach can give hitters problems because they weren’t ready for it. The Red Sox thrived at the beginning of 2024 with a breaking ball-heavy approach, but the success wasn’t sustainable. Bello went through the lineup three times, giving me hope that the success was due to the pitch’s quality rather than being a surprise new weapon. After two trips through the lineup, Yankee hitters couldn’t have been caught off guard. We’ve seen Bello’s command come and go, but if he can locate like he did on Sunday, he may have found the arsenal that unlocks his potential.